>>A lot of screen real estate is wasted, both on the top half and the bottom half.
>
>In the bottom half? Can you explain?

I'll send you a screen capture.


>
>>I have a suggestion to avoid wasting space. Split the screen into 1/3 and 2/3rds vertically. Let the thread map be a tree in the left 1/3 and the selected message be in the right 2/3rds. Just as the tool bar at the top is fixed, fix the (prev next reply folder ...) tool bar at the bottom of the right 2/3rds. The bottom of the left 1/3 would be a horizontal scroll bar.
>>Only one scroll bar on the right side of the 2/3rd section would be needed. One of the right side of the 1/3rd section would help the map, or it could be put on the left side.
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>What your asking for is big. You're asking to change the entire layout of the thread. If you would like to sign a waver and take responsability for it, maybe we could consider it as we'd be bombarded by complains if we'd do such a drastic change. ;) Seriously, this is not practical presently. We do not resolve issue by redesign the entire frameset. That's an issue I mentioned I'll take a look at and see how to optimize that. But, the clock should continue to turn. :)

Perhaps it is big, but is it any bigger than what you've already done?